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Vanilla Garlic is my nifty food blog that I tinker at with essays about life and food that I like to think are humorous or thoughtful. I also work as a freelance writer and a cookbook author. Whether I succeed at any of this debatable.

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Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Cravings are an electromagnetic force. A natural phenomenon that few have any hope of even fighting against. Subconscious desires which become conscious obsessions.

Cravings send all-encompassing currents to your brain and stomach, making them stand at attention like excited iron shavings. Every charged thought aligns itself towards the polar source of yearning.

A few weeks ago that force caused me to be drawn to grilled cheese. Why grilled cheese and not something like banana cream pie or roast beef, I don't know. Cravings are a random and mysterious lot, activated by the most random stimuli. I wasn't even sure what kind of grilled cheese. I just knew that I had to have that raspy sound of crunchy bread and oozy cheese seeping into the crevices between my teeth.

Eventually BF and I met my friend Kate and her husband Ken for a night of hearts. Each couple planned on making one kind of grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner. She made pears and brie on french. I made feta and white cheddar on garlic rubbed rye. Both were raspy and oozy but fell short in satisfying me.

It was only on a whim I made the grilled cheese combo that would calm my cravings. Rye bread with white cheddar adorned with a tangle of basil leaves that Ken had just brought in from his garden. The rye was a perfect scale to balance the stern and salty cheese against the perky basil.

The craving was pleased.

Like all cravings the first bite is electric. Every nerve excites with the achieved taste. A completed circuit. You can't find peace in the first bite. Cravings don't work that way. The first bite is an ignition.

The second bite and, consequently, each successive bite after that is a poultice to the cravings. They charm you into a relaxed state. Floodgates open releasing waves of smile inducing endorphins. Electricity dissipates and all you're left with is a static buzz.

The cravings hit again the other day. This time the spark was ginger. It took over my mind making me a mess at work. I'm sorry were you saying something? I was thinking about ginger. What? Is the ginger broken again? I'll call the ginger and see if they can't ginger the ginger.

By the end of the craving had consumed me. I zoomed home at the speed of ginger.

An hour later I was blissfully awash in ginger. Warm gingerbread served with a cup of ginger tea. The force of the cravings dissipated, stomach and brain were appeased.Ginger Tea

For the gingerbread I just used my recipe for gingerbread cupcakes but poured all the batter into a buttered and floured 9X9 pan and baked it for 35 minutes. The ginger tea is beyond simple, a quick way to satisfy ginger cravings (not to mention calm upset stomach and cure colds).

Place a few slices of peeled ginger into a saucepan with 2 cups of water. Bring to a boil then simmer until the liquid has reduced by half. Stir in a tiny bit of honey. Serves one. Recipe can easily be doubled, tripled, etc.

The bread attains the perfect, buttery, hoped for grilled cheese sandwich crunch. The Havarti oozes into silken bliss, the Pepper Jack provides a bit of zing, and the Rosemary edge on the ham kinda makes you moan just a bit, in a good way...

Hey, you're leaving a comment! That's pretty darn cool, so thanks. If you have any questions or have found an error on the site or with a recipe, please e-mail me and I will reply as soon as possible.~Garrett